surface work | burnished spine, private paintings
a literal interpretation on the origin of the work | 2024
After 25 years of inquiry into limitation, restriction and repetition, I return to the origin of my practice; awe for the coal miners in my family,
their manual labour and the hidden, private paintings they carried on their backs.
As a painter working with art based on process, I rarely disclose my private influences as my art practice has evolved beyond its initial motivations. However, after two decades, I have decided to return to the origin of my work; awe for manual labour and the coal miners in my family. Surface Work Series, first installed in a derelict building yard in Montejaque, Spain, pays homage to their punishing, repetitive and confined labour in Scotland's Glencraig Colliery, the deepest coal mine (pit) in Scotland at 610 metres below ground. I work on the surface. In 2024, I am revisiting this theme with a direct and literal series of painting, drawing, frottage and monoprint.
Burnished Spine, Private Paintings Series.
After each shift my grandfathers and the other miners were pulled out of the pit covered in coal dust. When they returned home, their wives or children would wash them in a tin bath, but didn't wash their spine. Instead, they used the Venus mount of their hands to buff and polish the carbon powder into their skin. Eventually it became permanent. They believed that this strengthened their backs. Their White Shirts, Black Jackets, Roman Catholic Sunday Best Clothes covered black carbon paintings.